Nothing Will Replace the Original

Do we really need a reboot of that 1974-1980 TV classic, The Rockford Files? No! Yet that’s what NBC is anxious to force down our throats, with 56-year-old David Boreanaz (Angel, Bones, SEAL Team) cast as Los Angeles private eye Jim Rockford, a character synonymous with the significantly more appealing James Garner. From Deadline:

As expected, Rockford was a sought-after role. While broadcast pilots typically go through up to half-dozen offers for the leads until someone engages, there were only two offers in the case of The Rockford Files. Both got interest and led to negotiations, with the reason the first did not pan out being logistical, tied to the series’ filming location, I hear. ...

While The Rockford Files is set in Los Angeles, the pilot will shoot in Atlanta with additional filming in Los Angeles. It has not been determined where production on the potential series would be based should the pilot get picked up; it’s possible that the show applies for a California tax credit.

The Rockford Files, a contemporary update on the classic series of the same name, comes from writer Mike Daniels, producers Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly and Universal Television.

In it, newly paroled after doing time for a crime he didn’t commit, James Rockford (Boreanaz) returns to his life as a private investigator using his charm and wit to solve cases around Los Angeles, with his charmingly gruff exterior masking a strong moral core. It doesn’t take long for his quest for legitimacy to land him squarely in the crosshairs of both local police and organized crime.

This isn’t the first effort made to remake Rockford for a modern audience. Dermot Mulroney starred in one pilot that bombed back in 2010. A film adaptation of the series was proposed in 2012, with Vince Vaughn (seriously, Vince Vaughn?!!) in the lead, but it was never produced. And now we have NBC intending to serve up David Boreanaz as wisecracking and perennially skint “Jimbo.” Consider me skeptical. Rap Sheet contributor Jim Thomsen put it best when he wrote on Facebook, “The Seventies was the point of The Rockford Files. Absolutely nobody wants to see Jim Rockford doing database searches or being paid in crypto or tracking down missing TikTok personalities. We’re there for plaid jackets and payphones and pay toilets. And answering machines big enough to be used as murder weapons.”

It’s not hard to imagine how Garner would take this news.